Of Illness and Wellness
by Lilly K
Summary: A Pokemon Ranger with a short temper frantically searches for the antidote to a Pokemon virus created by Team Rocket before time runs out. Written in collaboration with my friend Mandi.
1. Chapter 1

Of Illness and Wellness

Pear was up late that night working on her latest laboratory project, a breakthrough DNA-RNA chip for Pokemon. She had already finished testing a similar invention on humans, however Pokemon had sufficiently more complex genetic structures, and were proving to be a greater challenge for the young genius and her assistants. She was staring at a bit of computer coding when a high-pitched alarm pierced the quiet, mechanical sounds of the lab. Pear was surprised at the thought that someone had breached her temporary security system. The location of the lab, as well as the inventions being developed and tested there, were kept confidential. Perhaps someone had been careless and triggered the alarm by mistake, but Pear wasn't the type of girl that ignored a possible intrusion. She switched the central monitor from the chip's configuration to security camera footage. She narrowed her eyes at the empty hallways. Too empty. A tall young woman with fiery red hair and bright blue eyes fell through the ceiling of the hastily assembled facility. She had just enough hair on her head for a few streaks to hang right over her eyes, and veil their striking intensity. She brushed ceiling insulation off of her jacket, and muttered something under her breath.

"Ah, thought as much..." Pear couldn't hear her, but she continued, making her way quickly through the halls now, "Never trust a map that's been leaked."

Far from reacting with anger or fright, as some of the older lab executives had done in the past, Pear grinned, leaning back against the swivel-chair, watching the security screen. This was exciting! The first time in her career as head researcher that lab security had been compromised. She sized up her opponent carefully—the Ranger looked to be in her late teens or early 20s, at least some six years older than Pear. She was quickly closing in on the control room.

"Should we barricade the entrance?" Asked Pear's second in command, Avery, who looked like he was the kind of person who stepped on butterflies for a laugh.

"No," Pear twirled her hair, "... open the entrance. I want to talk to our mysterious interloper. Pear cracked her knuckles under her white gloves. She gave her assistants a vicious smile, but her intentions were not malicious. She was far too curious for that. "Well, don't just stand there, do it at once!" she demanded.

Just as the windowless steel doors buzzed and glided open, the face of the Ranger turned the corner into the adjacent hall. She slowed from her sprint when she saw the open door, and the staff waiting there, silent and calculating. They were more intimidating like this than she had imagined. She took cautious steps into the large control room, peering from one researcher to the next, preparing for some sort of reaction.

A girl, barely a teenager, with two purple poofs of hair sticking up from her neatly parted scalp, stepped out from behind a row of terminals toward her, grinning. Surely, Mandy thought, she must have made some mistake coming here. This could not be the Team Rocket facility. And yet...

"Nobody ever finds my labs," Pear said, picking up a pencil from a nearby table and sucking on it, never taking her eyes from Mandy. "You must be a real smarty!" laughed the child.

Mandy was quite confused now, but refused to let her guard down. She was more suspicious now, more unnerved than she had been when she entered the facility. Peering at the girl, Mandy had a sinking realization. She had heard of a ruthless Team Rocket agent, a special operative, that fit this child's description. Small frame, purple pigtails, and an uncanny ability to strike her opponents with fear and doubt. This facility was not one of many Team Rocket contract labs, this was an interior operation, hiding some of the group's most valued secrets.

Pear was inching closer, pausing mere feet from the Ranger. She didn't look like a ruthless Pokemon abuser, but looks could be deceiving.

"So tell me," Pear looked up, wearing no expression but the curious gleam in her eyes, "Why did you break in to our lab? What knowledge here did you intend to steal?"

"Steal—that's rich, coming from one of you!" Mandy scoffed. "In your pointless pursuit of power, you've not only risked, but intentionally damaged the lives of countless Pokemon and people. I came here for something that you have no right to—the antidote."

Pear blinked at her, "Oh dear, a moral lecture. I repent from my erroneous ways," she moaned, dramatically draping the back of her fingers over her forehead, and leaning over the chair.

Mandy didn't know whether to laugh, or shout at her, so she stood stiff and still, hands clenched into fists.

"Let's say for a moment," Pear began, "That I wanted to humor you, crazy lady. You'd have to be a lot more specific about this antidote. This is not a research facility for diseases, so I have no idea why you think you can come here and get that sort of thing."

"I know what this place is," Mandy said in a low, dangerous whisper. "This is where you develop mind control and torture devices to coerce Pokemon into following Giovanni's evil agenda! You mutate your test subjects into warped creatures, after you steal them from honest trainers." Mandy was shaking now, unable to control her anger. Team Rocket had wronged her. It had wronged many people... but did this child deserve the rage Mandy longed to release upon this evil organization?

"Uhhhhhh-huh..." Pear arched an eyebrow, teetering against a chair, "I would venture to say that your sources of information regarding Team Rocket have been spoiled by an unhealthy amount of bias. I have read some of the reports that the Rangers write. They're spiteful, but can't deny the great strides that we have made. Our advances in Pokemon technology have exceeded other organizations because of our willingness to do whatever it takes to get results. It may not be cream and peaches, red, but it's effectual. In the end, we all reap the rewards. Even you."

"You're a liar and a little monster! I know you have that antidote, and I'll make you pay if you don't hand it over!"

Avery reaches for one of the Pokeballs on his belt, but Pear holds up her tiny gloved hand, and he flexes his fingers.

Pear scratched her chin, grinning wide now, "You really think I have this antidote thing, don't you? What sort of a disease is it you want cured, and for whom? You don't look sick to me. Is it someone in your family? Is it a boy you like?" The little scientist watched for facial signals as she asked, noting the welling anger that the ranger could barely contain, knowing that with just a little push, she might spill it all out. "If you hand any brains in your head, miss Ranger, you'd never have come here. But please, scrape together the few cells you have up there and listen. I don't expect you to think I'm honest, but if you don't believe me, you have two options. Take on all of us yourself, which would make you sorely more stupid than I originally suspected, or accept that you're outmatched and march those stubby Ranger legs of yours out of my lab. What do you propose?"

"Neither," Mandy pressed a button on her belt, and a steel cord shot from it, binding Pear to her tightly. A crash came from above as the roof caved in, and Mandy nimbly navigated over the rubble and out of the top of the underground lab.

Pear's mouth dropped open as she tried to sqirm out of the tight coils. She tore her gloves against the cord that pressed her in close to Mandy.

"Stop kicking, little Rocket brat, you're just the distraction!"

"The distraction? …. oh no!" Pear looked at the lab with wide eyes. "My research! My cute tiny little life's work! You wouldn't..."

"Tell me about the antidote, and I won't," Mandy snapped, breaking into a heavy-footed run.

Pear put on her best pout and squeezed out a few crocodile tears, "I don't know! Please, you have the wrong people!"

There came a loud crashing sound, and smoke filled the air around the outside of the complex.

Pear managed to break a hand free, and held it out toward the facility, sobbing, "No... my pretty computers! All the shiny technology! You … killed them."

"I may vomit, miss Rocket," Ranger Mandy rolled her eyes. "Do you think I don't know Team Rocket's data backup policy?"

"Darn it," Pear smirked, "And I was having so much fun deceiving you. You really should learn more compassion for poor little girls like me. We're just so fragile and-" Pear's rant was interrupted by a jab to her shoulder with the Ranger's elbow, "Ow! You hurt me!" Pear shrieked, and slapped Mandy repeatedly in the ribs. "You. Should. Never. Hit. A. Poor. Defenseless. Little. Girl!"

By the time that Ranger Mandy got Pear to the holding cell in the back of her truck, the right side of her ribcage was raw and bruised. "Quiet down back there, you'll be taken to Officer Jenny soon enough. We just need to run a little errand first." Mandy sped off from the edge of the forest, through the suburb, into the heart of the city. She pulled through an alley into the garage of a run-down old warehouse.

"Recognize this, kid?" the Ranger asked, tying Pear's hand down, and leading her out of the cage. "It's a mostly unused Team Rocket facility... lucky for us, the mainframe is still connected. All I need is an administrative login, and something tells me you've got one."

"You will regret meddling in the affairs of Team Rocket, Ranger," Pear said calmly, looking at the old computer terminal in front of her. "We are not only the most powerful and deadly group in operation, but we are the true future of people and Pokemon everywhere. You can't escape from Team Rocket and our plans to change the world. Fighting us is useless."

"Yeah, keep flapping your jaws all you like. Just access the database," Mandy ordered, untying her hands once she had firmly tied her ankles together. "You scum'll get exactly what you deserve, whether it's me or someone else who serves it to you. I know from experience … that Team Rocket has no heart."


	2. Chapter 2

The girl in the labcoat protested, of course, but all Ranger Mandy heard was, "We protect... blah blah blah... and shall rectify... blah blah... AVENGE... blah blah blah!"

When Pear had successfully accessed the database, Mandy bound her hands again and tied her to one of the building's support columns in her line of view. "Last chance," the Ranger called out, looking away from the monitor at the girl. "You can spare Team Rocket's other secrets if you just tell me about the antidote now."

Pear cleared her throat, "Antidote is an item that heals a Pokemon afflicted with poison. It costs 100 and can be sold for 50 to a retailer. It is found at all Pokemarts."

Mandy looked at her incredulously. She honestly thought it would be easy to get the antidote out of one of these selfish Team Rocket types once she had one captured. "I don't have time to waste on your jokes. I'll find out for myself quickly enough." The Ranger recalled the sight of a sobbing youngster outside of the Teralot Hotel. Her Pokemon was lying comatose in her arms. To Ranger Mandy this was the first clear sign that Team Rocket didn't just care about targeting enemies with this virus, they were letting it spread to anyone's Pokemon. She realized she was staring blankly at the computer screen in the old warehouse, and hoped Pear hadn't noticed her moment of weakness.

Hours passed as Ranger Mandy clicked through Team Rocket's classified materials. One or two projects stood out in her mind, but she wouldn't let herself be distracted by them. Pear was groaning all the while. There was no search system, users had to know the numerical code of the file they were looking for. She would punch random sequences in and enter them, finding files from time to time, but no results pertaining to the Pokemon virus or its antidote. After viewing some disturbing files about a Team Rocket summer camp for Pokemon trainers, Pear's user was kicked from the database.

"We're getting out of here, Quickly." Mandy approached her, and called Officer Jenny from the Pokegear in her tool belt. "Yes, officer, I've just apprehended..." she held her hand over the receiver, "Care to tell me your name, kid?"

"It's Pear. Executive Pear."

"Yeah, I'm back with you, Jenny. I just caught Team Rocket executive Pear here in the old warehouse at fifth and seventh street. I thought you might want to pick her up for questioning. Mhmmm. Yeah. Alright, I can do that. I have some special requests to make, if you can arrange it for me. We'll talk when we get there."

Pear stopped squirming and whimpering so that she could hear the conversation better.

Mandy untied the little researcher, hoisted her over her shoulder, and locked her up in the back of her truck again. They drove to the police station, and Pear was placed in a cell there while Officer Jenny and Ranger Mandy talked in another room. After some deliberation, Ranger Mandy reappeared in the jail area, holding a large glowing ring in her hands. "Recognize this, Rocket scum?"

Pear's eyes widened at the sight, "A control ring! Those were discontinued, and for good reasons. They're prone to horrible malfunctions and the kinks couldn't be worked out. We dropped the project. What are you doing with that?"

"You could say I found it lying around one of your abandoned lairs and picked it up as a souvenir," she stared down at the child without a hint of expression in her voice. "Officer Jenny has permitted me to take you into my custody, provided that I can control you. Since the team you're so proudly a part of has no problem using these on other peoples' Pokemon, I have no problem using this one on you."

Pear whispered angrily, "You don't know what you're doing with that! If Officer Jenny knew what it is capable-"

Mandy lowered her voice, "IF Officer Jenny knew about what this collar can do, she would keep you locked up in jail for your crimes. Wouldn't want that, now, would you."

"Fair point," Pear glared at the ranger, "But don't say I didn't warn you that these can be... unpredictable. And they weren't developed for use on humans."

"On you? … These are risks I'm willing to take." She fastened the collar around the girl's neck through the bars of the cell, and it glowed brightly, dimming again after it was securely locked on. She opened the cell door to let the girl out. Pear folded her arms and marched up to Mandy, kicking her in the shin.

"Ow! Apologize!" she demanded, using the control mechanism.

Pear gritted her teeth, "I'm sorry... that you're so weak."

"This isn't going to be easy, is it?" Mandy clenched her fists, "But now, at lest I know when you're telling the truth. So tell me... everything you know about the antidote."

"I know that it's something you're looking for, and that you believe Team Rocket created it, but today when I spoke to you was the first time I heard of it."

"Damn! I was sure you knew something, with how smug you've been," Mandy grit her teeth. "Maybe this thing's malfunctioning. I'll have to make you say something you'd never say. Say... 'Team Rocket is terrible' for me."

"Team Rocket is terrible..." Pear began, and finished holding her fist up threateningly, " … for you."

Mandy was satisfied. Frustrated at this cheeky girl who really did know nothing useful, but at least the device appeared to be working. "Well you don't know anything, and there's noting in the database, but your boss has access to the information I seek. You're going to help me infiltrate the Team Rocket Main Headquarters, and access Giovanni's personal files."

"And how do you think you're going to get into the personal files of the leader of Team Rocket once we're there?!" Pear couldn't believe the recklessness of this Ranger.

"You're supposed to be a genius, right? You figure it out."

Pear's animosity was just about used up. She wanted to cry, but wouldn't give the Ranger the satisfaction. She begrudgingly agreed to the plan, because she knew that she would be controlled to come along anyway. The best case scenario for her now would be to slip away somewhere in the base and find someone who could remove the collar before the Ranger noticed she was gone. She was still certain to be punished for her incompetence.


End file.
